"Am I the silliest woman on earth carrying all this?" asked Sherilyn Neal, stopping on Michigan Avenue to put her purses on a scale I set up on a table bedecked with a big sign asking, "How much does your purse weigh?" (Short answer: too much.)

Neal was carrying just under 10 pounds, split between the Chicago account manager's purse and her purse annex, an ample tote filled with an extra pair of shoes, a just-in-case umbrella and a hardcover library book by the author of "Eat, Pray, Love."

"That's a light book. You should have caught me when I was carrying the ' Harry Potter' books," laughed Neal.

Although Neal's load was at the high end of my weigh-ins, it was nowhere near the top. Mostly women, plus a trio of 20-year-old guys visiting from Ukraine, weighed in.

Neal was a lightweight compared with accountant Suzanne Fisher, 43, of Western Springs, who was hauling a back-breaking 20.4 pounds (in two bags) along Boul Mich, including a hefty leather calendar that she cannot let out of her sight. "This is my life," she said as she let me weigh the thing (2.5 pounds).

With a stylish white monster hanging off her left shoulder, tiny Ana Rodriguez, 46, said, "I told my husband yesterday I need a smaller purse. It is heavy, and I had back surgery," said the homemaker and mother of four from St. John, Ind. Her wallet alone weighed 1.5 pounds, and her makeup bag wasn't far behind at 1.1 pounds.

Believe me, any purse over 5 pounds feels heavy, "especially when you've been walking for four hours. It gets heavier," said one woman who was weighed down by her bejeweled 6-pounder.

"I'm always picking up my patients' purses and asking, 'What the hell do you carry around?'" said Dr. Susan Dugan, a back pain expert and associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Rush University Medical Center.

"Big purses are 'in,' and they're beautiful, but if you carry a smaller purse, you have to prioritize. So choosing a smaller purse would be a good solution," says Dugan.

(For a peek at my personal purse psychosis, see opposite page.)

Dugan says there's no specific weight limit women should shoot for, but she had two ways to measure whether your purse needs to slim down. If you have trouble lifting it off the seat next to you with one hand, you're in trouble.

And: "If you will not let other people pick up your purse — 'Oh, no, I'll get it. It's too heavy' — then it's time to purge."